CX Leader of the Year 2022 winner: Maneesha Bhusal, JD.ID

Following in-depth scrutiny of over 150 award entries, the announcement of an exceptional cohort of 20 finalists, and the awarding of special commendation prizes to four entrants, our panel of judges have selected JD.ID's Maneesha Bhusal as 2022's CX Leader of the Year.

Among a remarkably high calibre of entrant, Maneesha stood out as a leading example of a customer experience professional who has succeeded in driving customer-centric change through vision and determination, no matter the obstacles. 

"Retail is one of the most challenging industries of all to create a CX focused mindset," says CX Leader of the Year head judge Ian Golding. "With immense pressure to deliver on short term sales led metrics, changing the mindset to become more customer led is tough. I am very impressed with the work Maneesha has done to overcome this challenge and deliver incredibly positive results."

"Maneesha has helped make JD.ID a truly customer-centric organisation," adds fellow CX Leader of the Year judge Michael Hinshaw. "She’s approached customer experience as if it truly was the heart of the business, using CX as a lens through which to impact virtually every aspect of JD.IDs operating model, ranging from alignment and accountability to roles and responsibilities, executive education, and CX metrics based rewards structures. 

"She appears to have leveraged her background in technology and operations to embed customer experience tools techniques and methodologies as new ways of thinking and working, driving product and services improvement, design and delivery. Also, using CX to drive significant cultural change leveraging design thinking and similar techniques to bring the customer into the center of decision making in a systematic and repeatable way." 

Fellow judge, and former CX Leader of the Year champion, Sandra De Zoysa, adds: “Maneesha has extensive experience working across 39+ countries covering the entire spectrum of customer experience management from strategy to tactical plans. She is a passionate CX advocate who has helped to transform the organisation to adapt a customer-centric service culture, she has set up a culture that is considerate of the wellbeing of employees. And the overall results achievement by way of NPS, CSAT, CES, CPO, FRT and other service-level parameters are extremely impressive, creating the desired impact for the organisation.”  

Responding to the news of her success, Maneesha said: "It is a great honour for me to receive this special award. Thank you very for this acknowledgement and recognition for my work in CX. This acknowledgement means that I am really doing something right.

"For me this is not just an opportunity to shine, but serious obligation and much greater responsibility! It gives me purpose and zeal to continue to share my story and knowledge with even more people looking to grow in the CX field. Thank you again. from the depth of my heart, for such a honour and privilege."

Highly commended

Announcing Maneesha as this year's CX Leader of the Year caps a process in which some of the world's most pioneering customer experience practitioners have shared their success stories and best practices via our unique and independent award process.  

Over 150 entrants were received for this year's award, from countries all over the world including Sweden, Cameroon, Australia and India. Alongside Maneesha's selection as overall winner, four fellow entrants were also highly commended by the judges for achievements in the fields of technology, culture, insight and employee experience:

• Manuela Pifani, Asda - The CX Leader of the Year Insight award
• Georges Essama, Cameroon Telecommunications - The CX Leader of the Year Culture award
• Samantha Statham, Fulfilmentcrowd - The CX Leader of the Year Employee Experience award
• KV Dipu, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance - The CX Leader of the Year Technology award

CX Leader of the Year judges were full of praise for the effort, detail and passion shown in all of this year's award entries:

"You can see the industry maturing and becoming a formal business discipline in the best entries here," says CX Leader of the Year judge Daniel Ord. "All the important ‘domains’ are considered, an initial internal benchmarking or study of ‘where we are’ is done and then a strategy (including the vision) is built and executed. I could imagine a CEO reading the best entries and saying, ‘Oh, that’s what CX is, what it does, and why it matters’ more than most webinars or articles that you’d read!"

Fellow judge Paul Greenberg adds: “All the finalists for CX leader of the year understood the value of making sure that not only was the Voice of the Customer heard but the systems and technology were in place to help the customers take care of the ordinary (not the delightful or extraordinary) needs that they had.  I call this keeping the ordinary, ordinary. 90% of what a company has to concern themselves with when it comes to that customer is making sure the customer can conveniently do what they came to do – whatever job that is - buy something, read something, download something, fill out a form or make a simple request. This CANNOT fail. The finalists made sure that they kept the ordinary, ordinary because when it comes to the customer, there is no expectation of the ordinary failing.”|

Head judge Ian Golding concludes: "All the finalists demonstrate what it takes to be an effective CX leader – it is a combination of knowledge, structure, focus, application, passion and above all, courage. All of them have demonstrated how these attributes align to enable a CX Leader to commit to bringing the principles of CX and customer-centricity to life."